


Les Nocturnes

by lovedandlost06



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M, s6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovedandlost06/pseuds/lovedandlost06
Summary: nocturnenoun1. Musica short composition of a romantic nature, typically for piano2. Arta picture of a night sceneCompanion pieces inspired by the delicate intimacy of Season Six.





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn't the girls that upset her. It wasn't even the drugs. She'd been there, trying to escape from it all among the nameless and the faceless, chasing oblivion to the bottom of the bottle. 

She sighed as she straightened up after loading the dishwasher. She considered catching up on some of the work she'd had to shelve when she went looking for him that afternoon. She didn’t have the focus for it though, the day having taken its toll on her energy and resilience. She decided instead to shower and call it quits. 

These precious few minutes were often the best part of her day - warm, cleansing, undemanding. Sometimes she shed tears of frustration or loneliness in the watery solitude. Tonight she switched to the massage setting and turned her back on the spray, allowing it to soothe the ache between her shoulders. 

He'd allowed himself to be vulnerable with them, accept what they could offer him, the way he wouldn't with her or anyone else who wanted to help him. She understood that too, the insularity. She kept everything bottled up these days, scared to let anything seep in or out, lest the torrent within burst free and drowned her. 

She realized she'd turned around, unhooked the shower head and was directing it between her legs, like any other woman who’d given her best to others and was left with only this for herself. She could still feel the pulse as she toweled off, slipping into a loose-fitting tee and yoga pants for sleep. She added a belted cardigan and sat on the end of her bed for a few moments, remembering her promise to him that they'd work it out. What the fuck had she been thinking? She'd already tried every trick she knew and had gotten exactly nowhere. 

 

He never let the girls fuck him. He couldn't stand the thought of them riding his broken body, clutching him in a mockery of lust or intimacy. At least with them on their knees he could tell himself he was in control, using them for his own needs. He was any other guy with money burning a hole in his pocket on payday, indulging himself. 

He got up from the end of the bed where he'd sat, thinking about them, about her, after trying the door to upstairs and finding it locked. Before that he'd showered, as quickly and efficiently as he could in the circumstances, trying to ignore the hissing of the spray, the feeling of the steam filling his lungs. 

He'd used his good arm to thread himself into another of the nondescript shirts she'd bought and inked his name into when he'd refused to let her wash his clothes, opting instead for the impersonal ineptitude of the hospital laundry service. Elastic waist pants, also bearing her careful fucking penmanship, were next. Then in the absence of anything else to do, he'd sat down again, head swirling for who knew how long, before deciding to lie down and wait for the fleeting snatches of unconsciousness that passed for sleep. He didn't care that the bedside lamp was still on, he was used to the artificial, perpetual daytime of the hospital, and figured it might help him find his way back from the bathroom, if not his nightmares.

  

He wasn't sure if he'd been asleep for a minute or an hour when he heard the soft knocking. He was wondering whether to acknowledge it when the door at the top of the stairs opened and she began to descend. He sat up carefully, folded back the bedclothes and turned so he was seated on the side of the bed. He avoided meeting her eyes as they'd always been his undoing. She crossed to the bed and tentatively sat near him, keeping her hands at her knees, knowing he would not tolerate her touch. He was stubbornly silent, waiting for her to explain the reason for her visit. 

"It's self-locking," she explained. "The door." 

He nodded, giving nothing away. 

"I only have my key but I'll get a duplicate made, if you want one." 

He shrugged, determined to make this as hard for her as possible, trying to render himself even more unworthy. 

"That all?" he eventually rasped. 

"Would you like to come up?" she asked, seemingly desperate to continue their strained conversation. "Franny's asleep," she said, haltingly. 

He turned his head to look at her and saw she’d folded her arms across her chest, noticed her nipples poking through the thin fabric of clothes not warm enough for the cold of the basement. He hadn't bothered to switch on the heat.

"Walk you out," he muttered in faux chivalry, getting unsteadily to his feet. 

“Not necessary,” she said, shaking her head, trying to mask her hurt at his dismissal. 

She noticed he followed her anyway as she began to climb the stairs. Maybe he’d decided to come up with her after all, or at least take a look at where she lived from the doorway. She moved slowly, always staying on the step just above him. Halfway up, he rested his good hand on her shoulder.   

“Well, this is it,” she said quietly at the top. She was about to retrieve the key from her cardigan pocket when he silently leaned in to her. 

His hand moved from her shoulder, trailed down her back to her waist, pulling her to him slightly as he breathed in the smell of her hair, her soap, her. It slid down over her hip, rounded her buttock, slipped between the tops of her thighs. She breathed in sharply. 

He applied a slight upward pressure as he withdrew his hand, palmed her buttock, kneaded it. She made no attempt to move, to stop him. She was naked beneath her yoga pants. His hand slipped between her thighs again, this time pressing against her cleft. He wondered if he imagined her thighs parting slightly. 

This time when he withdrew his hand, he found her waistband and boldly slid his hand inside it. He felt the smoothness of her skin as he skimmed her buttock. There was no mistaking her sigh, or the way she widened her stance this time, eyes downcast. He cupped her, feeling the warmth between her legs, the softness of her. Her whimper as he began to stroke her made him break out in a sweat. When he tested her entrance with the pad of a finger, he found her already becoming wet and his cock began to stir. His fingertip moved forward, circling her hood, eliciting another whimper. Soon he probed her with one finger, finding her slick already. He withdrew and penetrated her slowly with two fingers, felt her flesh yielding as he pressed them deep inside her.

He thought of the times he’d seen or heard her getting fucked, of the many nights he’d fantasized about fucking her, and ground himself against her. It seemed a cruel irony that at last he was here, a wreck of a man who could neither love nor fuck her the way she probably wanted, the way she deserved. He realized he was being rougher than he intended, that she’d braced herself against the door, and withdrew his fingers, ashamed.

“Quinn,” she pleaded softly, a tear spilling from one eye.

He wasn’t sure whether she was relieved he’d stopped or desperate for him to continue, couldn’t bring himself to ask. He slid his fingers back inside her, taking the measure of the situation, of her. When she didn’t resist, he began to explore her, please her, lose himself with her. Suddenly it didn’t matter who’d fucked her before and how loud she’d been or whether she was using her body to bend him to her will. For a moment they were any two lovers giving in to desire or daring to trust again after devastation. He would always remember her soft cries as her body spasmed against him and the way she pressed the side of her face to his, sobbing with her release, her tears temporarily washing away the pain they’d both endured and the uncertainty they still faced. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

His nightmares were usually the same. Had been since waking from the coma. Bound wrists, sheer fucking terror at the realization of what was about to happen, a last decision to stand strong as long as possible, stare the fuckers down.

Then the hiss, the gas almost invisible of course, but its effects there for all to see. Gasping, choking, frothing, shaking. Falling, shitting, twitching, fading.

Every morning when he woke, bathed in sweat he swiped from his face with his good hand, he was grateful. Grateful he walked like a fucking gimp, grateful he couldn't manage the buttons and snaps most preschoolers could and had resorted to pull-on clothing, grateful he could barely hold a thought some days. Grateful it was him and not her.

For one time it had been her he saw in the gas chamber in his dream. It was her he watched awake to the horrifying realization that she hadn't quite died, that she was trapped, powerless in a living death. And it was him sitting on the edge of her bed, concern for her etched into his face, trying to be strong and supportive while hiding his own regret and pity as she learned to walk and to talk again.

In the group therapy sessions they'd wheeled him into until he regained enough independence to exercise his right to veto, the shrink had encouraged them to think about the things they were grateful for, for fuck's sake. He hadn't given it another thought until that morning when he was wiping the sweat from his face, he suddenly realized he'd squeezed his eyes shut and the words _thank God, thank God, thank God_ were playing over and over in his head, like some demented mantra. Apparently he did have something he was grateful for after all, and since then he'd allowed himself to feel it every day on waking.

The flipside of his gratitude that this had happened to him and not her though was that he felt compelled to keep all of it to himself, not let any of it touch or taint her. So he refused to accept comfort or draw support from her. He'd tried everything he could think of to turn her away - sullen silences, spiteful shouting, giving up. He'd been serious when he'd implored her to let him go. And yet here he was, in her fucking house, in her fucking bed. Not the bed she slept in, of course. But still, it was hers. All of it was. He was. Hers. _Her concern. Her burden._

 

She padded quietly around the kitchen in the small hours, preparing her daughter's lunch, checking the fridge to see what she needed to pick up on her way home. She couldn't sleep, which was not unusual.

Rather than lie there giving in to anxiety she found it better to get up and do an hour's work, make lunches, fold laundry. There was always something that needed doing and it was helpful to have a distraction from whatever was keeping her awake. Most times it was him. 

Sometimes she'd reread his letter or watch that fucked-up video again, her own self-imposed penance, and recommit to being there for him, the way he'd always been there for her, seeking nothing for himself, but nurturing hope that one day things might be different. Better. For him. For her. _For them._

There were still occasional glimpses of the man who'd written that letter. She knew it wasn't just embarrassment and depression that caused him to push her away. He genuinely wanted to spare her any involvement in his recovery, stop her from saddling herself with what he clearly believed was a lost cause. She tried to ignore the ache in her heart when he stared at her in hopeless resignation that maybe this was all they were to each other now. She tried not to allow herself to think that maybe it was all they'd ever be.

 

Her heart stopped for a moment at the first blood-curdling scream. She crossed the kitchen and threw open the door to the basement, relieved it wasn't locked from his side again, though the thought was lost almost instantly as his second scream, more anguished than the first, rent the night. She took the stairs two at a time and found him still caught up in the nightmare, his good arm flailing wildly, his face a rigid mask of suffering as he continued to wail in open-mouthed grief and terror.

She clutched him tightly to her and spoke soothingly, calling him back from his hellish dreamscape, reassuring him he was safe. She rubbed his back, rocked him, trying to infuse him with the calm she worked so hard to maintain herself. She felt him start to relax against her.

She continued to hold him as he regained his bearings, grateful for the opportunity to do so despite the circumstances. It seemed a lifetime ago that she'd held his hand during the coma, touched her finger to his lips, silently reassuring him she was there, waiting, that she'd never give up on him.

She felt the change in his breathing as he began to nuzzle her neck, his fear and desperation transforming into a need for love, connection. She recognized his yearning, she felt it herself, and realized her resolve was starting to waver.  

His hand caressed her back under her tee, warming her, seducing her as it followed the line of her ribs, found her breast. She pulled back to slip off her shirt, and his fingers slid beneath her hair, settling behind her neck as his lips trailed down the gentle slope of her chest, closing around her nipple.

When her hands roamed slowly down his shoulders to his back, he paused to pull his own shirt over his head, avoiding her eyes as he carefully peeled it from his left arm. She sensed his vulnerability and gently eased his chin up, kissing him softly, open-mouthed, as she reached for his left hand. She pressed it to her breast and held it there, moving it in slow circles as their kisses deepened. His other hand clasped her waist, her hip, her buttocks, pulling her closer to him, edging down the waistband of her yoga pants. She carefully placed his hand back at his side, then palmed him firmly, before helping him to slide off the rest of their clothes.

As she climbed into his lap, he slipped his hand between her thighs, feeling her fingers clench in his hair as he lightly stroked her. When she rose onto her knees, he held himself in line with her, his forehead pressed to hers. He felt her breath on his face as she lowered herself onto him, each of them shivering as she began to move against him. 

They stroked each other's faces, clung tightly to one another, kissed gently, passionately, urgently. Neither of them had ever experienced anything quite like this, the gentle yet desperate giving and receiving of love, comfort, hope. Her hips tilted forward as she ground herself against him, her soft cries reaching a crescendo when he crushed her pelvis to his and moaned against her throat.

He wrapped his good arm around her as she lay with him after. She reached for his left hand, holding it carefully as she pressed her lips to it and placed it over his heart, not letting go as they drifted together in the shadows of the early morning.

She thought about how rare and wondrous it was to love and be loved despite flaws and failings, that she was right to have held out for something so precious. As their hands rose and fell with his breath, he thought he heard her whisper, _"This is why..."_

 

 


End file.
